A Fly that Bugs Evolution

Imagine looking at a tablecovered with jars. Each jar contains several fruit flies. Some of the flies have no wings; some have tiny, useless wings; others have several pairs of wings. Other jars have flies with legs growing out of their heads where antennas should be. Some of the flies are yellow; others are black. Some of the flies have 25 bristles; others have 50 bristles. Some of the flies have red eyes; others have orange eyes; and others have no eyes at all. What is going on?

The common fruit fly, called Drosophilia melanogster, is often used by scientists to study mutations. Since the flies can breed new flies every 12 days, scientists can see thousands of generations of flies in a few short years. Researchers often expose the flies to radiation in order to mutate their DNA. The mutated flies give birth to strange offspring. The mutations cause all of the different varieties of flies that were just described. Some scientists hoped that speeding up the mutation rate of the fruit fly would help us learn how evolution works. In fact, scientists have studied fruit flies for almost 100 years and have seen millions of generations. But the fruit flies have not shown scientists how evolution works—because evolution does not work!

The fruit fly has proven that evolution is false. Even after millions of mutated generations, the fruit fly has not evolved into anything else. There are no half-fly/half-birds. There are no flies that have mutated into lizards or half-mice. In fact, the fruit fly shows that mutations cannot combine to form a kind of animal different from the original animal. The fruit fly is still a fruit fly.

The result of the research on fruit flies is exactly what you would expect if the fly was created by God. In the first chapter of Genesis, God told the animals and plants to be fruitful and multiply after their own kind. The fruit fly has been multiplying after its own kind in science labs all over the world for many years. It has never changed into another kind of creature, even though scientists have caused it to mutate in every way they possibly can. It is amazing how such a small creature can provide so much important evidence for Creation!

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